


Doctor Patient Confidentiality

by WellSlapMyAss-andCallMeShirley (TheAllpowerfulOZ)



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Community: shkinkmeme, Hurt/Comfort, Modern AU!, alternative first meetings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 13:43:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8058598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAllpowerfulOZ/pseuds/WellSlapMyAss-andCallMeShirley
Summary: Kink Meme Fill for; http://shkinkmeme.livejournal.com/9516.html?thread=22680620#t22680620
Modern RichieVerse! Holmes and Watson meet because Holmes gets himself hurt and Watson is his doctor. 
I pulled some themes and ideas from BBC Sherlock, but that's where the similarities end.





	1. The Stalker

**Author's Note:**

> Ex and I had planned to make this a longer fic, but it didn't pan out that way. I hope you enjoy it in spite of this.

0-0-0

0-0-0

ONE;

It wasn’t bad for his first day. Six patients, two upper respiratory infections, a sprained wrist, an elderly man in for a follow up after he’d fallen (no broken bones thankfully) and a young mother with her infant afraid the runny nose was actually bacterial meningitis, that she’d seen a report on the telly about an outbreak of meningitis and that little

Tabitha had been lethargic and sniffly all week and those were the first symptoms! Please, Dr. Watson, please don’t let my baby die!

He’d smiled kindly and looked in baby Tabitha’s ears, eyes and nose and reassured her mother that it was not meningitis but just a little cold, and that if she was still worried he would be happy to have one of the other doctors look at the little girl.

Tabitha’s mother nodded, relieved, and he’d gone to fetch Mary.

Ten minutes later Tabitha’s mother was much happier and little Tabitha was gumming wetly at a lolli and drooling sticky pink on her mother’s hair.

“Well,” Mary said amusedly, “I’ve got two patients more to see, you’re welcome to cut out early if—“

And the surgery doors opened, two uniformed policemen insinuating themselves into the small wait room carrying a dark haired man in an indigo jacket and rumpled white shirt. His head was lolled backward on his neck and the arm he should have had around the left most policeman was up rubbing at the side of his face, catching his lower lip and pulling it outward quite far before releasing it with a giggle.

Mary came around the desk as the three policemen sat the man on unsteady legs and propped him up. “What’s happened?”

“An experiment!” The man crowed and thrust one hand up into the air, he sagged like a deadweight between them.

The senior most policeman, a tall thin man with brownish hair sighed and rubbed his brow; “He ‘lectrocuted ‘imself with the batt’ry in our car…” He rolled his eyes, as if this wasn’t the worst he’d seen; “Said ‘e wanted to find out iffit’d be enough to knock ‘im unconscious.”

“I was corroborating evidence,” The man in the purple coat was grinning broadly rubbing at the left side of his face.

Mary put a hand to her throat and reached for the phone; “He should be taken to the A and E…”

“Nonsense!” The man cried and tried to shove off from the two men supporting him; “It was unsuccessful, there’s no need for all this—this DRAMA. I’m perfectly alright,” He wobbled on his feet, stumbled and collided with the wall. He gave a spastic jerk and his hands twitched; “I didn’t lose consciousness, my heart-rate is elevated as is respiration, but not to a d-dangerous degree,” He twitched again. “There was no interruption of cardio pulmonary—“ He lifted a hand to his face and patted his cheek again; “Oh, this is unpleasant… my face is still numb!” He made a noise like a horse between his lips and shook his head savagely as if trying to jar sensation back into himself.

Mary’s mouth dropped open and she turned; “John—“

“I’ve got him,” He nodded and moved forward to loop one of the man’s arms over his neck, pressing two fingers to his wrist in the same moment and counting the rapid beats of his heart.

He was tragically light, this stranger. Thin as a rail, but his body possessed a strange solidity that hinted at the fact his smaller frame was composed of nothing but muscle. In all his years of medical work, both in and out of the army, John Watson had never been more intrigued by a man’s body through one single touch as he was in that moment.

Strange that he should find such a man—a man who looked not to have shaved that day, or the day before. Or for that matter have eaten in twice that many, could so perfectly tickle that part of his mind that woke from dreams of the war with his hands curled and ready—eager to resume the fight and reassert his existence, his importance once more—with naught but his voice and an intense but aloof dark brown glance.

This man wore mystery like his very skin, and it called to something in him that until that moment he had tried to force down and ignore. This man BREATHED and LIVED excitement in a way John Watson had only tasted it in those brief terrifying—EXCITING—seconds before his shoulder was taken apart by a bullet.

The man wobbled his head to the side and stared with his lips drawn down and his nose wrinkled; “Afghanistan or Iraq?”

0-0-0

It was barely twenty-four hours after that, sitting in his little office behind his desk musing to himself how strange and thrilling it had been witnessing the strange little man named Sherlock Holmes picking apart a person’s whole earthly experience just by looking at them. How he’d been privy to John’s entire military career just by the tan lines on his wrists and neck. His illness and the resulting STAPH infection from his injury, the battle he was still fighting against it with daily antibiotics and weekly visits to let his surgeon poke and prod the lumpy scar tissue on his shoulder to make sure the infection had all been successfully removed.

It was so eerily strange that Sherlock Holmes had known this all simply by OBSERVING him.

Fascinating.

Truly, and brutally fascinating!

Even more so now that he’d been able to sleep on it and think about how sharp that man’s mind must be to have gathered all that information from such trivialities.

And then there was a knock at his door and Mary stuck her head in, smiling at him kindly.

“John? It’s that man from yesterday, he said he wants to see you—and only you.”

He was up and out of his seat in half a breath, cane clicking as he emerged.

The man was standing there gripping his left arm tightly and looking at no one yet everyone at the same time, an expression on his face of oblivious, cool superiority.

“Mr. Holmes?” He waited until those dark eyes slid to him before he motioned to his office.

He walked like a cat, as if taking his time approaching at his leisure, not because he’d been called upon, and passed so close that his shoulder brushed Watson’s middle as he breezed into the cubicle.

“What seems to be the problem, Mr. Holmes?” He shut the door with a click.

“The numbness in my left arm has returned. And my face is all pins and needles.”

Watson nodded and took the smaller man’s hand between his own checking the color of his cuticles and nail beds. They looked pink and healthy, so it couldn’t be a clot and the blood was flowing normally… No twitching or spasms. His pulse was normal… Yet the longer he counted the faster it beat against his fingertips. Strange.

“Are you experiencing anything else? Arrhythmia? Shortness of breath?”

“Now that you mention it… I do feel a bit short of breath.”

“Perhaps you should check yourself back into the hospital for observation. You did take quite a shock yesterday…”

“It was minor.”

“You electrocuted yourself with a car battery… I’d say that’s a tad more serious than ‘minor’ Mr. Holmes… Who was it that saw you yesterday?”

“Oh… A tall man with a receding hairline and glasses.”

John nodded; “Yes… Which one.”

“I’ve forgotten his name, it’s of no consequence.”

“Really? Because I got a call this morning and said you never arrived.”

“They did not.”

“Oh, and how do you know they didn’t?”

“Because you didn’t call to tell them I was coming.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No, you did not… If you did you would have spoken directly to Dr. Stamford, a colleague of yours from years back—He works at Bart’s and you would have made sure he took care of me himself.”

Watson’s mouth twitched in amusement.

“Subsequently, no… I didn’t go. There was no use, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Ah, so your hand isn’t numb then, and you’re not experiencing pins and needles in your face… Which, had you truly been, your speech would have been slurred and your nail beds would have been dark.”

Holmes stared at him for a moment with wide surprised and amused eyes, a light flush rose to his cheeks and pulled his hand back; “Damn you…”

Watson chuckled to himself watching the smaller man flee. “Have a good day, Mr. Holmes.”

0-0-0

Four days later Mr. Holmes was back, a wad of tissues clapped to his nose, head tilted back and a police inspector at his elbow.

Mary called out loudly as the inspector pulled him in; “John, he’s back!”

Watson came out of the washroom quickly, still drying his hands, and sighed, mildly perturbed. He blinked at the inspector. “You’re new…”

The man nodded in his direction; “Inspector Clarke, sir… DI Lestrade asked me to bring him in… Said he had a run in with a cabbie.”

“It’s quite alright, just a broken nose, I could have handled it on my own,” Holmes said, flapping his free hand dismissively.

“A run in with a cabbie?”

“More specifically his fist, but I suppose that’s what one should expect when trying to incite a brawl,” He turned to Clarke; “He didn’t do it by the way… Do tell Lestrade. Weak left hand.”

Inspector Clarke sighed and pulled open Holmes’s coat, despite the smaller man’s protestations and produced his wallet and a medical alert card that he handed to Mary; “He has a clotting problem, or else we wouldn’t have bothered, but the little bugger bleeds and the DI didn’t want him fainting in the street somewhere again.”

“Again?” Watson’s brows ticked up.

“William Clarke you are exaggerating… I’ve never fainted in my life.”

“Of course, Mr. Holmes… Whatever you say,” He waited until Watson had hold of him before he stepped away, watching in amusement.

“You tell Lestrade I’ll never forgive him for this! Spreading such awful stories about me… After all I’ve done for him… I didn’t even tell his wife about the time he slipped me the tongue, did I Clarkie!”

“He was giving you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Mr. Holmes, after you’d nearly been drowned in that koi pond by the Costner chap, the one that murdered his daughter.”

“Good Lord!” Watson eyed the inspector as he led them into his office then turned to Holmes; “Do you have a death wish?”

“Of course not! Why would I wish to die, if I did the world’s average IQ would drop instantly by half!”

Clarke sighed in a put upon fashion and leaned against the wall while Watson eased Holmes onto the exam table and pulled his head forward; “Leaning your head back like that lets the blood go down your throat, it’ll cause you to vomit or choke.”

Holmes’s nose was bleeding profusely and both eyes were already beginning to swell shut, Watson turned; “Inspector Clarke, would you mind asking Doctor Morstan to fetch an icepack, please?”

Clarke nodded and disappeared out into the corridor, while Watson climbed to his feet, easing his way with one hand on his thigh and scrubbed his hands and wrists quickly at the sink, dried them and slipped on a pair of gloves. When he faced around again, Holmes was decidedly green about the gills and his eyes were fluttering back toward his hairline.

“Mr. Holmes do you feel faint?”

“Just… just a bit light headed…”

Mary came into the room with Clarke in tow, took in the state of John’s patient and went to his side; “Mr. Holmes, lie back for us, yes? Inspector Clarke, please hold his feet up, just like that, thank you.”

Holmes glared at her with quite a bit of disdain considering he’d appeared just a breath away from fainting a moment ago. Watson cracked the ice packs she’d brought applied one to the smaller man’s brow and the other to the back of his neck.

“Mr. Clarke, does he have someone at home who can watch him overnight? He could start bleeding again and may require assistance,” Mary said as she watched John work, peering beneath the sodden ball of tissue Holmes was still weakly clutching to his face.

Clarke thought quietly a moment and spoke with his chin up; “He lives on Baker Street now… Had a flatmate across town but the man threw him out a few weeks ago, there’s the landlady at Baker Street I think, she’s down stairs from him though.”

“Right…” Watson glanced up then back down at the state of Holmes’s nose. “You’re going to the hospital for observation and fluids, Mr. Holmes.”

“I most certainly am not, I’m perfectly fine.”

“This time, you are not… And unless you’ve someone to stay with you and ensure you don’t begin to hemorrhage I’ll have to use my authority as your doctor and insist.”

“Well then, if you’re so insistent on taking up the part of my physician, Dr. Watson, is it not your responsibility to ensure my continued care? Should you not stay at my side, as per your responsibility, to make sure I don’t ‘faint in the middle of the street’?”

Watson was quiet for a moment. He should decline simply because in the last week this man had come in to see him three times now, once because he’d electrocuted himself, once because of faked symptoms and now because he’d agitated a cabbie into punching him on the nose. He clearly had psychological issues and John Watson was not a psychologist, but then again he was strangely intrigued… What did Mr. Holmes do that he’d been personally escorted to a doctor’s by a police Inspector? Perhaps he was a detective? Or a scientist? A criminal consultant like from the television?

It was all a little more than a tad exciting. And John Watson’s life had lacked excitement for the past year now, not since that bullet had torn his shoulder to shreds and he’d spent six months in and out of hospital because of the infection.

It would be nice to have some excitement again… Just a little.

“Fine… And the second—The very INSTANT you appear faint or begin to bleed again I’m calling for an ambulance, understand?”

“Naturally…”

0-0-0

Holmes’s Baker Street Flat was an absolute mess. The only bit of the floor Watson could see was a thin spidery path amid the clutter. It wound around the furniture, into the

kitchen which surprisingly was mostly clean aside from an elaborate chemist’s set up in front of the window. There was a path up the stairs to what he assumed was a second bedroom, or a storage cupboard and on each step, like a makeshift bookshelf there were various books, magazines and wildly stacked old newspapers. The words ‘Fire Hazard’ came to mind.

Spiders had begun to nest thickly in the corners of the room, and Watson saw a mouse scurry off the tea table with half a stale biscuit in its teeth and it disappeared between two piles of old issues of the Times.

Watson blinked at it all in a daze, Holmes weaving his way effortlessly through the maze of it, a fat gauze pad taped under his nose, eyes already blackening and squinted through the swelling. His voice came out muffled, distorted by the cotton stuffed in both nostrils; “There’s tea… in there somewhere… I’d have the landlady make some, but she’s quite adamant that I not call for her at such ungodly hours… She broke a tea pot over my head last time.”

“You can’t be serious,” He scowled at Holmes in disbelief.

Holmes quietly, calmly sat up and parted his hair away from his crown, showing a pink, long scar shaped like the round base of a ceramic teapot.

“Why did she break it over your head!”

“I’d put a foot in it.”

“You’d put your foot in it.”

“Not my foot, Watson, A foot. I got them from cadavers in the morgue at Bart’s and needed to see how different brands and types of tea affected the degeneration.”

Watson stared at him for a long hard moment and considered fleeing for his life. “Why would you do that?”

“I needed it for a case.”

“A case.”

“Yes, I’m a consulting detective. The only one in the world and I had to ensure my hypothesis was valid, that cold herbal tea causes faster degeneration in calloused arthritic flesh than black tea and canned soft drinks.”

“Why?”

“I was hoping to convince her herbal tea is harmful… She tries to poison me with it and she is calloused and arthritic, so it was the perfect experiment you see.”

Watson felt himself slowly starting to grin in morbid amusement. Yes, he could see why the woman would break the teapot over his head now.

“You’re a consulting detective right? What do you do… as a consulting detective?”

“I do what the men and women at New Scotland Yard are incapable of.”

“Which is?”

“I catch criminals.”

“With your deductions? Like you deduced me the other day?”

“Precisely.”

“Are you any good?”

“Very. I’m not the only consulting detective in the world for nothing you know.”

“Of course… But how good are you, prove it.”

“Have you committed any murders recently?”

Watson looked insulted; “Of course not.”

“Then I can’t, unfortunately… The Criminals of London have reached a dry spot, nothing at all interesting for weeks. No murders, no violent crimes, no bomb threats, absolutely NOTHING!” He slouched dramatically in his chair and squinted through his swollen eyes as if he wished to honestly die from his boredom.

“I would think that would be a good thing, no crimes I mean—“

“It’s HELLISH! My GOD the agony! I shall stagnate! I’ll waste away into nothing!” He clawed his fingers into his hair; “Anything! God, ANYTHING interesting! A robbery! A missing person, vandalism, drug running—ANYTHING at all!”

“You’re very dramatic,” Watson picked his way carefully along and found a seat, easing himself into it and resting his leg. “Why not watch telly?”

“You bore me… Your very presence causes me pain!”

John laughed quietly; “It can’t be that bad… Here, why not deduce me again… Or that police inspector who brought you into the surgery.”

“Dull.”

“If you’re so unbearably bored, anything would be welcome, yes? Then go on… What did I have for lunch?”

“Cold chicken sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise,” He sneered as he said it and the effect was somewhat pathetic considering the bruised and swollen state of his face. “No pickle because it gives you gas.”

Watson blinked in surprise; “How do you know that!”

“You’ve a spot of oil from the mayonnaise on your shirt cuff, a mustard stain on the corner left of your mouth, just under your moustache and the sandwich shop just down the street from the surgery offered cold chicken as today’s special, which you took advantage of because of your current state of… finance. As for the pickle? You suffer bouts of indigestion, the tin of antacids in your pocket is evidence enough of that. Vinegar can cause stomach upset in cases of acid-reflux—which I do believe you were diagnosed with years ago, were you not? Yes, therefore, no pickle, no spicy pepper…”

“That was amazing… Go on.”

Holmes cocked a brow.

“Really, go on! It’s fascinating.”

Holmes was quiet a minute, his brow delicately creased in concentration; “You’re over qualified to be working at such a small surgery, but were so desperate for a job so you can start saving for a flat and leave that abysmal bedsit, that you took the first job offered to you. Didn’t bother looking really—no, you did look, but chose that surgery because it was small—fewer people, less stress, flexible hours—temporary job if I’m correct, which I know I am… So you either don’t feel confident practicing medicine full time yet—most likely because you’re still recovering from that awful STAPH infection and fear the nerve damage and that tremor in your hand there would affect your performance during operations.

“You’re afraid of hurting someone. So you work at a small surgery as a temp where statistically the most severe case you’ll come across is a broken bone, or a bleeding nose—case in point— a safe, dull place where you can ease your over abounding insecurities with small miracles and not have to worry about working too hard. Not have to worry about pushing yourself or stepping outside that protective cage you’ve built because you think you’re mad for dreaming what you do—for thinking what you do—for feeling what you do… But you’re not, and you know it… You may try to tamp it back so no one will know, try to force yourself into normality into the mundane, the joyless…” He paused for a breath, “Or you have an appalling lack of self-esteem and I think that’s more intolerable than being lazy. Then again, perhaps it’s not quite that simple. Perhaps it’s a mixture of three different reasons. Perhaps you took that job because you are a bit lazy and it’s what people expect of you. You’re invalided home, you’re recovering from an infection that most usually proves fatal with such severity, and you’ve got a psychosomatic limp. People expect you to invalidate yourself by remaining small and timid and in the background. They expect you to be weak after such an ordeal, especially that infection—Which I believe is the bare root of your limp, you always did have a tendency to want to please everyone, even at the expense of yourself. So, instead of following your desires, you dim yourself, shut it all away and work your little temp job and return to your little bedsit every evening and dream of a battlefield you never left—not because it traumatized you, but because it made you feel alive,” He didn’t blink, voice pitched low and dangerous, “Does that about sum it up, Doctor Watson, or shall I continue?”

Watson took a slow deep breath, relaxing the death grip he’d inflicted on the chair and eased his shoulders back into the upholstery. Something in him had clicked. His therapist had said he needed to get back into the swing of things, start slow. Needed to admit that he was frightened, and that it was alright to be scared. Post-Traumatic Stress wasn’t uncommon and it could be dealt with, he could learn to cope with it. Nothing said he couldn’t someday have the life he’d wanted before the war. That he just needed to learn to trust… Some hollow aching part that had rebelled at every decision he’d made since returning home, all the TRUST he’d put in the system for instance, this part of him felt ravenously hungry and all that would fill that void was this man and his overwhelming mind, his ability to look at him and KNOW what was wrong and what was right. He observed, he didn’t assume and file him away with everyone else who passed through his door. Sherlock Holmes wasn’t like the therapist. He didn’t try to gain his trust, didn’t try to lure him into a sense of security so he could probe his mind and pick apart his neurotic tendencies to break them—break HIM down and build him back up piece by piece according to the new Psychiatry Standard of Health. No, Sherlock Holmes could pick apart his mind by looking at him and didn’t, merely stated that he could. He saw John’s neurosis and displayed an alphabet of his own. Sherlock Holmes UNDERSTOOD him in a way no one else could and was telling him with every deduction, every lash of his tongue, that it was alright—he was more than alright, he was unique he was perfect; “Are you still bored, Holmes?”

“Not entirely…”

“Then please, do continue.”

0-0-0

0-0-0


	2. The Flat

0-0-0

0-0-0

TWO;

Holmes slept sprawled gracelessly across his sofa, breathing noisily through his mouth, eyes swollen shut now and vividly blackened. Watson applied a cold compress twice, relieved when the smaller man didn’t move but gave a small pleased hum and breathed a little easier. 

He kept notes on Holmes’s condition and peeked twice beneath the gauze covering his packed nostrils satisfied when there was no new blood. 

Mary sent a text, asking how everything was going, he told her it was fine and he was thinking about making some tea. Mary replied that she thought he was very sweet for volunteering to sit with Mr. Holmes tonight and that he was very silly as well. But if he wanted she could bring some food on her way out with her sister.

He thanked her and said that would be nice. 

Twenty minutes later she sent another text that she was down stairs but didn’t want to knock or ring because she didn’t think the land lady would enjoy being awoken like that.

He went down the stairs and opened the door with a smile, taking the package—it wasn’t from a restaurant, but looked like something she’d cooked herself and he felt a wave of affection toward her because of it, thanked her and wished her a pleasant evening with her sister.

Mr. Holmes was still asleep when he made it back up the steps so John cleaned off a bit of worktop near the kettle, made a small serving of tea and ate in silence, washed the plastic container and packed it back into the bag Mary had handed him to return his next shift. He spent the rest of the night dozing fitfully in one of Mr. Holmes’s chairs and trying to ignore the ache in his shoulder.

By the time he realized it was morning Mr. Holmes had completely disappeared from the sofa and was banging about in the adjoining room loudly; “I can’t find anything like this! I thought it was hellish before, now I can’t even—“ He gave a startled cry and something crashed loudly to the floor.

Watson was on his feet in an instant rushing into the room to find the smaller man sitting stunned beneath an overturned book case… His eyes were swollen shut and it was unlikely he could see anything at all, no wonder he’d been making such a racket.

“Are you alright Holmes?”

“Yes, splendid, just buried beneath a complete set of Encyclopedia… No hurry. Take your time.”

Watson began uncovering him, awed by the date of the books printed on the spine; “Why do you have Encyclopedia from nineteen-fifty?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“They’re out of date.”

“That doesn’t make them any less reliable.”

“Considering that these books were printed before the purpose of DNA was discovered, I believe that might be a matter of opinion versus scientific fact,” He stepped over the piles of debris and began shifting the books aside, stacking them before he went about setting the case to rights where it had toppled over when Holmes began climbing on it. 

“You really should clean this place up.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a mess! These labyrinthine pathways—“

“Labyrinthine?”

“Twisting and turning in a random manner—“

“I know what it means.”

“This is a dangerous! You’ve got stacks of dishware nearly to the ceiling in that kitchen and mould so thick I was afraid to go near it—What if the natives shoot little Fungian arrows at me… or I’m shrunk by their advanced technology!”

“You read too much science fiction, Watson…”

He paused, crouched there reorganizing the books and stared at Holmes with a very serious expression on his face; “One of the tea cups blinked at me.”

“Oh, Good… You’ve met Hannah!”

Watson was at first appalled, then recognized the sarcasm for what it was and shook his head. “You’re cleaning this place, Holmes. No human should live in this squalor.” 

Holmes’s face contorted as if he were trying to snort derisively but the packing in his nose prevented it and instead he just tried to force his swollen eyes open to level a glare at Watson. 

The effect was laughable.

Watson removed the packing from Holmes’s nose shortly after he’d managed to extricate him from the expired encyclopedias and kept close watch on him until well after noon. When his nose gave no sign of bleeding and after a ginger prodding to make sure the bone and cartilage were still in alignment Watson affixed a splint, a rigid piece of plastic with adhesive strips that kept the other man’s nose under a sturdy shield to prevent damage should he bash it on something—or someone bash it with their fist, which was more likely. He left instructions with Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, to please check on him frequently—

Holmes shouted down the stairs, his face still swollen, ice pack in hand eyes just beady dark glittering points amid the bruising; “Don’t tell the witch that! She’s tried to poison me twice already! She needs no more excuse to torment me!” 

When Mrs. Hudson smiled up at him sweetly with daggers in her eyes Holmes’s breath hitched and he drew himself to his full height and leveled a finger at her—“She how she does it! She’s cursing me as we speak! I’ll bet she’s got a little voodoo doll stashed in her sewing box that looks just like me! Has he got spanners on his nose, Nanny!”

Mrs. Hudson smiled; “No dear, but he has pins in his bottom.” 

Holmes’s lips curled down dramatically and he slammed the door hard enough to shake the walls.

Mrs. Hudson turned back around grinning; “He’s like a little child sometimes—“

Watson heard a low grumble of; “I am not!”

“—I do apologize, Doctor.”

“He’s not always that… abusive is he?”

Mrs. Hudson patted his hand; “Oh, he gets as good as he gives, I assure you. There’s no harm in it.”

John wasn’t really relieved and after a quick goodbye took his leave. 

0-0-0

On his way to the Tesco’s later that evening John Watson was rather politely abducted. It was no accident. A man who could and did blatantly threaten you without even so much as saying a word, had the effect of making everything he did look deliberate. Even kidnapping could be turned into a subtle, well-practiced art it seemed. 

John found himself in the back of the empty car and try as he might to engage the driver in conversation, the elderly man seemed to either not hear him, or not care to answer.  
When Watson was allowed out of the car he was shown into a rather posh looking restaurant in a part of London he’d never frequented. The whole establishment was entirely empty save a very tall—very large man standing in the middle of the room, one hand hidden away in an inner pocket of his jacket, the other resting lightly on the back of what looked like a large Victorian style reading chair with velvet upholstery and gold tassels on the seat cushion. 

Watson saw the family resemblance in the aloof, omnipotent expression on the larger man’s face. Sherlock had made that same expression standing in the waiting room at the surgery when he’d come in with his faked numbness and tingling. 

Watson wondered what he’d got himself into when the elder Holmes spoke; “Doctor John Hamish Watson, I presume?”

He nodded once.

“Good, do have a seat…” The man sat himself and began meticulously inspecting the place setting before him. He sat back and stared down at them distastefully, his expression somehow feline like even in its width and a thin man with a little moustache rushed forward, collected the cutlery and replaced it with a set in a little velvet roll in his jacket pocket, then he scurried away again to stand—seemingly invisible—in the corner of the room.

“What is this about?” John didn’t move, but flicked his eyes to the young man and back to the larger one before him.

“At the moment, or in general?”

“In general… Are you going to kill me?”

“Heavens no!” He looked up with his lips pulled down and his expression similar to that of a Bassett Hound denied a biscuit. “Now, please, have a seat.”

“Torture?”

“No—well, not in the sense to which you are referring… I merely have a few questions, and then—after you have answered them, I shall have you dropped off at that…” He gestured with a table knife as he’d been applying butter to a piece of bread produced from a basket at one side of the table. “Establishment, where you’re staying.”

John still didn’t move.

“I understand you’ve recently met my younger brother, Doctor Watson.”

And it clicked home, that yes, this was Sherlock’s older brother… God help him, how many Holmeses were there?

He sighed deeply and came forward slowly, cane clicking loudly in the quiet room. The large Holmes eyed it with something akin to horror until Watson had taken the seat across from him and set it aside. 

“The doctor who gave you that should be shot, it’s appalling,” He turned back to his bread. 

“What is this about, Mr. Holmes? Your brother came to me for treatment, nothing more.”

“And yet, with very little prompting you agreed to follow him into his home and care for him above and beyond the call of your duty, when you yourself said he should be admitted to the hospital… Why is that, Doctor Watson?”

“Because he seems the stubborn type and honestly, the only one I trusted at the time—that I was sure he would allow anywhere near him—was myself… He took one look at Doctor Morstan and acted personally offended to share the same air with her.”

The elder Holmes seemed amused by this, his plump lips curled up into a tiny smile.

“Do you know how many times, in the past week, my brother has visited your… place of employment?”

“Three.”

“No, I didn’t ask how many times you treated him, I asked if you knew how many times he had visited.”

Watson’s brow curled downward in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course not,” The large man sighed and sat his bread down carefully on his plate, knife at a ninety degree angle from his hand. “My brother has visited the surgery at least once a day for the last week. Four times though, he has had the misfortune of being ‘treated’ by one of your colleagues. Doctor Morstan, for instance, has treated him for a dislocated shoulder, a first degree burn, and a broken toe—All under his various aliases and disguises I assure you… And The Other Fellow—“

“Doctor Prince,” Watson supplied. Doctor Prince was on Paternity leave, and only came in once a week when his wife’s mother came to visit on Sundays.

“Yes,” He said in return. “Doctor Prince has treated him with Mydol when Sherlock complained of stomach cramps.”

Watson paused, blinked and shook his head; “I don’t mean to sound rude, Mr. Holmes, but your brother is psychologically ill.”

The Elder Holmes hummed in amusement; “Possibly… But in this instance, I have the advantage, Doctor Watson. I know exactly why he has done this.”

“Oh? Please, enlighten me!” Watson crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat.

“My Brother, Dr. Watson,” He said pleasantly; “Has a terrible habit of running in front of cars.” 

Watson snorted and crossed his arms high over his chest.

“It’s not that he’s suicidal, quite the opposite, he’s simply…” Mycroft twirled a finger in the air, expression airy and somehow wistful as he searched for the word, lips twitching as if silently reciting his immense vocabulary of synonyms. 

“He’s an idiot,” Watson said simply, “A brilliant, mad idiot.”

Mycroft smiled and his eyes narrowed in a way that seemed somehow delighted and insulted in the same moment. Like a large cat winking at its staff; “Precisely… I do hope you will ensure he takes better care of himself.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“None whatsoever,” He smiled and showed his teeth, “He’s attached himself to you, Doctor. Wrapped his little fingers into the fabric of your existence and it would take nothing short of surgery to extricate him I fear. I do congratulate you… And offer my most sincere apologies,” He sighed in a sympathetic, put upon way, dipped his head and turned toward the door; “Good day, Dr. Watson.” 

He had a feeling those ‘sincere apologies’ were meant with a smile and a giggle behind the elder Holmes’ large hand.

Watson climbed carefully to his feet and left the restaurant… Sure enough the little shriveled man behind the wheel dropped him off right in front of the bedsit. There was a bag of groceries waiting for him on his desk like some kind of apology… The ice cream wasn’t even melted.

0-0-0

Over the next few days John Watson thought quite a bit about Sherlock Holmes. How when he’d been in the man’s company his hand had not shook, and his limp had been completely absent. He hadn’t touched his cane once while at 221B. Miraculous… And for three days afterward he’d been able to walk around the surgery without it and there was only a hint of a limp.

After that though, things picked up at the surgery. His first few pay cheques were a Godsend, and he started looking through ads in the local newspapers for flats. He didn’t delude himself with the idea of having a flat as nice as he wanted—not at first, but some little one roomed hole in the wall would be better than a blasted bedsit that was little better than an isolation cell in the psychiatric ward. 

His thoughts strayed to Holmes once or twice over the next few weeks, but never were able to stay long. Just a fond memory of the man to keep him going and make him appreciate that he could walk now with a greatly diminished limp and if he was careful and didn’t rush himself, completely without that damned cane that clicked like a gun being cocked every time it touched the tarmac. 

He was walking in Regent’s Park one evening, an off day from the surgery, perusing a newspaper with a pen and cursing the January cold and the dull ache in his shoulder when someone called out in surprise.

“John? John Watson?”

He stopped short and turned, brows screwed downward, breath puffing out silver in the air before him. 

The man collected himself quickly from a bench and strode forward with his hand out. “It’s Mike, Mike Stamford!”

And just like that everything clicked. “My God…”

“Yes, gotten fat haven’t I… How are you! Last I heard you’d gone off to war? How did that go, getting shot at?”

He felt his lips curl up ruefully; “I got shot.”

Mike nodded solemnly; “What are you doing in London? I thought you’d have gone back to… to—“ He twirled a finger in the air, struggling to remember where John had told him years and years ago that he was from. 

Watson interrupted him with a hand on his arm; “Not really paid enough on an army pension and what I get from fill in work at a surgery not far from here, but… Well, I’ve got no desire to go back home, nothing to go back to really. ”

Mike tilted his head to the side; “I heard about your brother… Tragic that.” 

John nodded and changed the subject. No good came from dwelling on the dead; “I’m actually in the market for a flat if you know one that isn’t… Well—I’m not up to full time work until I get back on my feet, so something small would be best.”

He felt like he was lying saying that. Holmes had hit it right on the head, he was working at the surgery because, aside from the mild fear of what toll the infection had taken on his body, he quite liked the idea of being paid to do very little, but Holmes’s deduction had changed one thing. John Watson had checked every hospital in London near one of the flats he liked and applied for a job. He was just frightened, there was nothing else wrong with him but that fear. The tremor in his hand was gone, and the ache in his shoulder could be overcome. True, he wouldn’t be performing any fifteen hour operations any time soon, but nothing said he never would again.

“Funny you should say that,” Mike smiled, and it wasn’t an entirely pleasant smile, something gleeful and secret; “Why not let me show you around, we can go out for a pint after.” 

Mike taught at Bart’s now, he said. He’d got married, had a divorce and got married again. 

“Not learned my lesson I suppose,” Mike chuckled as they walked, puffing quietly through his mouth to keep up.

Watson didn’t say much, just reacted when the conversation called for it, smiled or offered a little chuckle. 

Bart’s had changed. The lab especially—

“John… I’d like you to meet someone—“

He turned from staring at the bank of new diagnostic computers in the corner and his eyes bypassed Mike entirely and lit on a head of dark mussed hair, an un-tucked white button down with unfastened cuffs rolled to the elbows and a familiar scruffy face with two week old yellow-green bruises under each dark brown eye. 

“Oh…” Holmes turned slowly and regarded Stamford in surprise. 

Stamford was looking smug. He perched his girth on a lab stool and crossed his arms over his chest, settling back to watch. 

Holmes paused, looking unnaturally flustered, and glanced to Watson with his unblinking dark gaze. “I suppose the flat does need a bit of tidying up…” And he turned back to his microscope with a put upon sigh; “Nanny will be so thrilled…”

0-0-0

0-0-0


End file.
